Obituaries

Michael Gough (1917 - 2011)

http://www.metro.co.uk/film/858366-michael-gough-batmans-butler-alfred-dies-aged-94

Best known as Alfred from the Burton/Schumacher Batflicks, but also a mainstay of British cinema, working for both Ealing and Korda.

I think my favourite of his performances would be as Dighton, the 1st murderer in Richard III, with his (and Olivier's) inane giggling making for a fine contrast with Michael Ripper's absolute deadpan as Forrest.

FourDot wrote:

[ a mainstay of British cinema, working for both Ealing and Korda.

He did a nice line in horror. Hammer's Dracula, of course. Also Anglo's Horrors of the Black Museum.

Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

The iconic screen actress has passed away.

RIP

A genuine screen legend. And one of the last from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Exceptional performances in Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly, Last Summer, The Taming of the Shrew, and above all else, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Which still ignores her turns in a few of the biggest (and most infamous) films of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, as well as a crop of charismatic juvenile performances.

In her prime, an undeniably extraordinary beauty. Basically throughout the entire 1950s.

It's a damn shame that the last time she was seen on the silver screen, it was in that wretched Flinstones film.

Damn shame, one of the last Golden Age babes.

R.I.P.

Can't say I enjoyed everything she appeared in, but she was an icon.

RIP

One of the last of the great stars, true, but did she ever make a decent film?

A PLACE IN THE SUN, but I recall you don't like Clift.

Damn. RIP.

And I didn't know Gough had left us.

An exquisite beauty and quite possibly the most glamourous Hollywood star.

RIP

Sad to hear. I've only seen Elizabeth Taylor in 3-4 films (The Flinstones one of them), but her name and image are amongst the most recognizable in the entire world.

Quite the coincidence that the very face staring back at me from the wall behind my screen right now is Liz Taylor from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in my vintage stars calendar for the month of March. Eerie.

RIP Liz. I agree with Brown to an extent over her output, but she was still a classy, legendary babe from one of the better ages of Hollywood.

And RIP to Michael Gough too, of course, one of the many great things about the original Hammer Dracula film, as well as quite a few appearances in some other good films down the years. And of course he played a nice Alfred to my fave Batman in the Keaton films as well. RIP Michael.

A legend.

RIP.

God bless you Liz. You can finally rest in peace with dear old Burton.

Her and him were eerily similar to my parents at their worst in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, one of my all time favourite films. F*cking stunning, but also to down to earth human being.

Forget the legend, and celebrate the real Elizabeth Taylor. A charming, dominant, very intelligent woman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/29/farley-granger-dies-aged-85

I didnt know he was still alive - RIP.

Thought he was great in Strangers on a Train. R.I.P.

Mr. Brown wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/29/farley-granger-dies-aged-85

I think he was more in the John Gavin/Robert Cummings mould in that he wasn't really that interesting an actor, but was good in certain roles in Hitchcock films. He was that kind of actor to me; handsome, sturdy, gets the job done. But he seemed like a nice and generous man. I've seen him in interviews.

RIP.

Interesting retrospective on Elizabeth Taylor by Camille Paglia at salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/03/23/camille_paglia_on_elizabeth_taylor/index.html

Quote :

"She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliche. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm."

Quote :

Taylor represented a kind of womanliness that is now completely impossible to find on the U.S. or U.K. screen. It was rooted in hormonal reality -- the vitality of nature. She was single-handedly a living rebuke to postmodernism and post-structuralism, which maintain that gender is merely a social construct. Let me give you an example. Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" is a truly wonderful film, but Julianne Moore and Annette Bening -- who is fabulous in it and should have won the Oscar for her portrayal of a prototypical contemporary American career woman -- were painfully scrawny to look at on the screen. This is the standard starvation look that is now projected by Hollywood women stars -- a skeletal, Pilates-honed, anorexic silhouette, which has nothing to do with females as most of the world understands them. There's something almost android about the depictions of women currently being projected by Hollywood.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Director Sidney Lumet dies at age 86

RIP :(

What a pity, 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon were incredible films.

R.I.P.

I really liked 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico and The Hill and he had one of the longest filmographies throughout the industry.

RIP :|

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/early-playboy-playmate-and-b-movie-acress-yvette-vickers-found-dead-in-benedict-canyon.html

Former B-Actress Yvette Vickers found dead in her home after moths of decay. RIP.

With friends like that who needs enemies? Grim stuff.

Another death - playwright Arthur Laurents, who adapted Patrick Hamilton's Rope for Hitchcock. Not very well, I might add ...

I give him an A for effort, though.

And jeez, that story about Vickers is unsettling.